Weird weather and other random stuff

It is January 3, 2012. Arne and Mcki are both back at work and school and things feel like they are getting back to normal after a whirlwind holiday season. Except for the weather. It is a little unsettling that the temperatures are in the mid 40s and are expected to stay that way for the week.

It was a beautiful sunny, warm (for Montana winter) day yesterday and it put me into spring cleaning and purging mode, which is unsettling in itself to Arne who is always worried about what treasures I have thrown away. I now know to bury them deep in the garbage so he won't see them until he goes to the dump and empties the trash. When he finally does see them it is too late to dig them out of the landfill in front of the workers. :-) When I got tired of cleaning, I thought about skiing or snowshoeing but there is NO snow. How weird. I almost got my bike out. I went down to the studio instead.

The studio is still torn apart because our kiln needs a relay switch. Now the kiln is a person to me. Her name is Ursula and I talk to her all the time when I am in the studio about pots and the glazes they will be covered in. It is a little sad to see her laying there in need of attention (along with the pots that need to be re-fired) and our hands are tied because the Bray won't be open until Thursday. In addition, I have been thinking about changing the clay I use and it is driving me crazy. I want to use a lighter color to get some truer glaze colors, but because I primarily throw baking ware I am hesitant to change to a potentially weaker clay body. Nobody can tell me if the clay I want to use is a true stoneware.

In the end, I went upstairs to find new glaze recipes to see if I can find that perfect green that I am always searching for that will work on the dark stoneware I am using. Maybe today will be the day I find it.